Ala. House Plans Vote on Scottsboro Boys Pardon

Attorney Samuel Leibowitz sitting with Haywood Patterson with his good luck horseshoe. Patterson was one of the nine young black men convicted of raping two white women.

law2.umkc.edu

The Alabama House is to vote on final passage of a bill to clear the names of the Scottsboro Boys.

The action comes more than 80 years after the nine young black men were convicted by all-white juries of raping two white women. Legislation allowing the state parole board to issue the pardons posthumously is scheduled to be first up in the House Thursday.

The bill passed the Senate by a 29-0 vote.

The nine black youths from Georgia and Tennessee were accused of raping two white women on a train in north Alabama in 1931. They were convicted by an all-white jury during a racially charged trial in Scottsboro. All but the youngest received a death sentence but later won new trials. One of the women recanted her story.